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[-] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

No idea what they're on about, but if I had to wager a guess....

Ethyl alcohol, is generally drinking alcohol. You'll find it in every bottle of liquor or spirits or beer.... Also known as ethanol, it's a good time. There are some studies linking it to cancer so please self regulate.

Methyl alcohol, aka methanol is most commonly associated to moonshine, though, commonalities shouldn't necessarily imply that all moonshine or moonshine labeled or marketed products contain methanol. As an alcohol, it has a similar but usually a perceived stronger effect. The problem is that the bodies natural systems to break down methyl alcohol actually cause the body up convert it into two different neurotoxins, which is where moonshine gets the reputation that it makes you go blind. The neurotoxins literally cause nerve damage causing your vision to be lost in extreme cases. In very low doses, the likelihood of long term effects from drinking methanol is rather low, but large doses of methanol have the very real chance of blinding or killing you.

Due to this, I expect the poster was trying to make a joke about how methanol is significantly more potent than "regular" alcohol aka ethanol; implying it was stronger due to "meth".

But I'm just guessing.

[-] atomicorange@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They both contain one methyl group, however. It’s literally the alcohol with the fewest methyl groups. I mean we could start talking about isopropyl alcohol with two, but I’d hesitate to characterize it as a “drug”.

[-] MaxVoltage@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago
[-] atomicorange@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Isopropyl alcohol? I guess in the sense that any poison is a drug. It’s not going to have any positive effects at any dose. I wouldn’t know how to quantify it’s “strength” vs methanol. LD50, assuming the desired effect was death?

[-] Methylman@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Drug has a pretty loose definition - anything with a physiological effect; but I was trained to think a drug as being those chemicals which can cross the blood brain barrier (BBB).

Alcohols can increase permeability of the BBB to solubilized substances in the blood so isopropyl would be able to affect the brain. Since a molecule has to cross lipid membranes (the capillary cell membranes etc) it's most dependent on the polarity and size of the molecule.

any positive effects

This is another valid way to define a drug depending on which branch of science one is inclined to study but I prefer to think of this as merely adding a characteristic to that molecule; i.e. addictive qualities

this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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